Friday, November 11, 2011

Nov 11th always means thoughts of my Grandfather who signed up before there was an RCAF so he flew with the RAF in the battle of Britton and in the North African Campaign.

He was shot down over Egypt and survived, but wasn't re-certified for combat, so he delivered new planes to the front and brought back planes that needed service as the Allies pushed north through Italy.

So many stories. Once while preparing to return to Egypt with a plane from Itally he noticed the grapes were ripe in the field next to the airstrip. So he unloaded one of the ammo bays in plane and filled it with grapes. Figured he was flying alone, so if he encountered the enemy there wouldn't be much difference between one set of guns and two. He flew back to Egypt with a load of fresh grapes, said it made him quite popular for a couple of weeks.